I Can’t Tell You What “Woke” Is. But I Can Tell You What It Has Done

 Apparently, it is an insult now if you call someone “woke.” But I don’t quite understand why.

Especially since I don’t even understand the definition of “woke.” Is it someone who believes in treating others as equals despite our differences? Or is it just some general label you give someone because you don’t like their views?

This is especially important because if you ask people the definition of woke—including those who complain about it—they usually can’t define it either.

I think most people consider it something akin to making people comfortable and not trying to insult anyone. But others apparently see it as something demeaning that keeps them from expressing themselves.

This is puzzling because you certainly are allowed to express yourself. It’s usually the consequences of expressing yourself that cause the problems. But I digress.

Like most people, I cannot give you a definition of “woke.” But I can tell you what “woke” has done:

•          It passed the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote and a voice in America.

•          After 146 people—mainly young women—died horrific deaths in a factory fire and after thousands of workers were maimed, disabled, and killed in workplace accidents, it established unions and occupational safety standards to protect American workers.

•      After decades of Jim Crow laws, it eliminated the lynching, segregation, and discrimination of African Americans through the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

•      It eliminated unfair voting practices in the south by White officials who gave “tests” and administered grandfather clauses to potential Black voters with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

•      It makes discriminatory practices against LGBTQ individuals—such as kicking them out of their homes and dismissing them from jobs—illegal. It also legalizes gay marriage, which is supported by over 60 percent of the people in this country. 

•      It passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, guaranteeing equal treatment and access to public buildings to Americans with mental or physical impairments.

•       It established the Clean Air Act in 1970 and the Clean Water Act in 1972, both passed by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon.

•      It gave women reproductive rights. A right supported by over two-thirds of Americans.

•       It gave rise to the #MeToo movement, which gives women a voice against predatory sexual practices and has finally encouraged law enforcement to take sexual assault cases seriously.

•       It has given us Medicare and Social Security to help Americans deal with aging. It has given us disability to aid those who are injured or sick. It has given us a myriad of social programs to aid those struggling with poverty.

 In every one of these cases, there were those who opposed these movements or the legislation that resulted. Why? Because for some people, when someone of a different race, sex, sexual orientation, social class, or even a different political persuasion gains rights, they believe they are somehow losing theirs.

People who are angry over some perceived “loss of rights” or dissatisfied with their lives will always see someone else’s gain as a personal affront to them. And they need a scapegoat.  Someone they can target for their perceived loss of status. They need a convenient target upon which to take out their anger.

So now, apparently, that anger extends to people who support those who were or are marginalized. So we call them "woke" in an effort to insult them. When all most of us are trying to do is make sense of an ever-changing world.

I had an argument with someone once who said the entire #MeToo movement was void because a few women claimed that men whistling at them constituted sexual harassment. This person claimed that this makes the entire movement “ridiculous” and we should just disregard it.

First of all, some women do see this as a form of sexual harassment regardless of how it is meant. That does not mean that everyone who supports the movement will agree.

Secondly, I cannot find a single case where a man was actually arrested or prosecuted for this. Nor can I find anywhere in the United States of America where whistling at women would be considered a crime.

And finally, the #MeToo movement has resulted in a dramatic decrease in sexual harassment in the workplace. It has also meant that police departments now take reports of sexual assault seriously. There is now a movement nationwide to process a huge backlog of rape kits in dozens of cities around this country.

But, sure. We should declare an entire movement that has occurred to the benefit of ALL women null and void because a few don’t like men whistling at them.

What you need to remember is that in every movement—regardless of whether it is on the right or the left—you are going to have those on the extreme edges who take things too far. But to use that as a litmus test of an entire movement is extreme in itself, not to mention ridiculous.

Speaking of taking things too far and embracing the ridiculous, let’s look at the reaction of some on the far right to the recent collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank. Fox News devoted copious amounts of time on Monday to claim that the bank’s instability and collapse were due largely to the fact that they tried to be too “woke.”

Really? So it had nothing to do with the banking deregulations that occurred in 2018 (because we clearly learned nothing from 2008)? And that bank’s heavy reliance on investments in high-tech startups? Or the fact that Silicon Valley Bank had extensive holdings in bonds, which lost value when interest rates started to climb?

To listen to the words of “wisdom” from the likes of Fox News or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—who never misses an opportunity to take an uninformed cheap shot—you would think that bank was run by Greenpeace, the cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and a drag queen named LaChicqua.

But Fox is in damage control right now for a number of reasons, and recent court document releases have shown us how seriously we should take anything that comes out of the mouths of Rupert Murdoch and Company. Including their definitions of “woke.”

Even if you believe that woke has gone too far, take heart. History has continually shown us that when society leans too far to the extreme, balance eventually returns. What comes to pass is a middle ground that won’t make anyone on the extreme edges happy but is something by which the majority of us can abide.

What NEVER comes to pass, however, is a return to the old status quo where you can marginalize, demean, criminalize, and deny basic rights to those who look or behave differently from you because you need someone to blame.

So if you seek a return to a narrow-minded, ignorant mindset and believe the rest of us will blindly follow, you have bigger problems than “woke.”